Business Incubator to Connect Bioproduct Research to Company

Universities are the supporting institution for innovative research. The high quality of the human resources in a university can be seen from the quantity of the researches from them. To realize the product of the researches, there should be a connector between the researchers and the company. It was stated by the senior researcher of Institute of Tropical Disease (ITD) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR), Dr. Widiyanti, drg., M.Kes, met in Shangri-La Hotel, Wednesday April 2016.

Yanti, how she is known as, called it a business incubator. The role played by this business incubator is to connect the researchers’ expectation to the company. All this time, not few institutes have their own sectoral interests. The researchers conduct the research they have planned with great funding needed, while the producing company wants to market the products and gets great amount of profits. That what it meant from sectoral interests.

“Business incubator is aimed to negotiate both sides’ expectations. If a bioproduct were mass produced, how much was the royalties, what were the test needed for the products and what should be optimized. We usually call it ttransitional research. Sometimes, further research even needed. If that happened, where was the funding from. Those are the domains of business incubator,” said Yanti.

Supports needed

Yanti who is also the Head of Scientific Publication and Journal Development Center (PPJPI) UNAIR said that the government needs to show its support to this area of research in universities. Researchers of HIV/AIDS ITD UNAIR hoped that the supports are in forms of funding, facilities and research policy which is added.

“Related to research funding, it should be added. But we do not need only physical supports, the government should take side in this regard. It should provide fair attention to all components. Not only in the central,” said the Head of PPJPI UNAIR.

Yanti suggested the government to change its policy patterns which do not Indonesian researchers all this time. She hoped that the government could determine block grant to appointed research centers, so the fund allocated was top down in character.

“The importance of block grant in research centers, so the fund goes top down. For example ITD UNAIR was given some fund to produce some bioproducts. All this time, we compete, we submit a research proposal at national level. Whether approved or not. I suggest a system consists of academicians, businessmen, and regulators to decide priority to do first. If it is implemented, the research and bioproducts resulted by Indonesian researchers will develop. We need extraordinary efforts to be independent,” said Yanti. (*)